Carrier route record
MQRIC→ORD
Envoy Air · Richmond to Chicago
- Flights
- 379
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 17%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Envoy Air.
Envoy on RIC to ORD lands a B−, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 379 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 818 at 82.4% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Envoy on RIC to ORD from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 366 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.17%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.1%
Every carrier on RIC to ORD, 2,211 flights
These figures cover 379 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Envoy against every carrier on RIC to ORD
Envoy flew 379 of the 2,211 flights on RIC to ORD, about 17% of it. Its 80.1% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 84.7% to SkyWest at 66.1%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 82.4% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 66.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 719 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 295 | 84.7% | 58 min | 2.03% | B |
| Republic Airways | 818 | 82.4% | 88 min | 3.67% | B− |
| Envoy Air (this page) | 379 | 80.1% | 69 min | 3.17% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 719 | 66.1% | 115 min | 4.59% | C− |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 4.6% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Departure window
When Envoy runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 13 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am91 flights86.7%
- 8am–11am50 flights79.6%
- 11am–2pm49 flights87.8%
- 2pm–5pm41 flights75.0%
- 5pm–8pm88 flights74.4%
- 8pm–5am60 flights75.0%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 87.8% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 74.4%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 91 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Envoy on RIC to ORD through the year
- Jul–Sep 202529 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202530 flights—
- Jan–Mar 2026142 flights78.5%
- Apr–Jun 2026178 flights81.5%
Scale runs 70% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 80.1% on time across 379 flights.
Split by quarter, Envoy on RIC to ORD logged 29 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 30 flights in Oct–Dec 2025, 142 flights in Jan–Mar 2026 and 178 flights in Apr–Jun 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 80.1% annual figure is the one to use.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 88.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 72.5%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Envoy runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 5,069 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 44%National Airspace System
- 11%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 5,069 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 5,069 reported delay minutes.
44% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 2,206 minutes out of 5,069, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 3.17%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 642 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 78.9% on time across 379 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 379 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking Envoy on RIC to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.17% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 366 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- RIC to ORD, every carrier
- Envoy on ORD to RIC, the return leg
- United Airlines on RIC to ORD84.7%
- Republic Airways on RIC to ORD82.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on RIC to ORD66.1%
- Envoy Air network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.